<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Roads Not Taken by Ranowa</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980447">The Roads Not Taken</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa'>Ranowa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Dream of Dying [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Fix-It: s03e03 His Last Vow, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, John Watson is a Good Doctor, John is a Mess, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutually Unrequited, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock is a Mess, he really really does not, sherlock thinks he knows best</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:21:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, </i>
</p><p>
  <i> And sorry I could not travel both. </i>
</p><p>
  <i> -The Road Not Taken </i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/John Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Dream of Dying [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Roads Not Taken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The response to the first part of this absolutely blew me away, and is definitely the main reason it's being continued. It's three AM now, so I'll go back through the comments in the morning for any questions that need answering, but for now just know that every single one of you is greatly appreciated :)</p><p>Since I don't seem to be alone, in wishing to rewrite HLV - I decided to continue this on just a bit longer, to take these two idiots out of mutually unrequited love. The premise stays the same- uncomplicated HLV fix-it with a happy ending- so I'm not starting some massive saga here, but hopefully, I'll be able to leave these two off even happier than I did in the last one!</p><p>You know. Eventually. After I play with self-loathing Sherlock and overwhelmed John for a bit, because that's how I roll :)</p><p>I hope you all enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In 2010, John asks Sherlock if he has a boyfriend. Sherlock tells him no.</p><p>"A candle for the table, boys," Angelo promises, his voice low. "It's more romantic-"</p><p>"I'm not his date!"</p><p>"You could be," Sherlock points out, and John's stormy eyes flicker wide.</p><p>John meets Sebastian Wilkes. Unctuous and full of himself and laughably smug, sneering about the freakish spectacle that is Sherlock Holmes- as if the manifestation of slime in human form Sebastian Wilkes is any better. John looks like he'd quite like to punch him. "My colleague, John Watson," Sherlock says-</p><p>"And friend," John overrides. He smiles that glorious, cold as ice, John Watson smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. <em>Seb."</em></p><p>Seb looks as if he's swallowed a golf ball, and Sherlock is stuffed so full of euphoria he could burst.</p><p>
  <em>"A date. It's where two people that like each other go out and have fun."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"That's what I was suggesting!" </em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Was it?"</em>
</p><p>John doesn't date Sarah Sawyer. Sherlock tells John when he's strangled in Soo Lin Yao's flat, and John touches his neck with soft, gentle fingers, and they go on a date to the Chinese circus and both get the lights punched out of them by dancing acrobats. He'd say it's the best first date in the history of recorded time, but it's the only one that Sherlock has bothered to archive.</p><p><em>"Gave you my number," </em>Moriarty purrs. <em>"Thought you might-"</em></p><p>Sherlock squeezes his trigger finger, and Jim Moriarty dies in 2010, shot in the head and bleeding out into the moonlit pool.</p><p>He rips John's clothes off two minutes before the police arrive. Lestrade walks in on him dissecting the Semtex vest, wire by wire, and it's not enough. He tears the vest apart down to the threads, until there is nothing but a mountain of fraying green cotton in his arms, and further still; he rips them apart until it is nothing dust, nothing but <em>atoms</em>, for <em>daring </em>to hurt John Watson.</p><p><em>People will talk, </em>John tells him, smiling. "People will talk, Sherlock."</p><p>Good.</p><p>Sherlock kisses him in front of all of Scotland Yard and Jim Moriarty's dead body.</p><p>People talk.</p><p>"Brain is the new sexy," Irene Adler tells him, and John doesn't get jealous over 58 text messages, because this is what should have been and John is an unbearable, unthinking, unbreathing <em>idiot </em>if he thinks Sherlock Holmes wants Irene Adler. "Brain is the new sexy," she tells him, and drugs him high as a kite, and Sherlock illustrates this fact by proceeding to have very intoxicated, very mind-blowing, very sexy sex with John in Irene's bed.</p><p>They go to Dartmoor. Sherlock doesn't have a panic attack and send John away. John doesn't miss that he's having a panic attack, and he doesn't let Sherlock send him away. Sherlock doesn't attempt to drug John. Bit Not Good. It's his fault. <em>I'm sorry, John. Don't go.</em></p><p>Jim Moriarty dies shot through the head for the second time. This time, John knows. Everything else, he feels it in the beats of his veins, everything else thrums inside him, he <em>knows, </em>it is the same: it is <em>perfect.</em> They pelt through London together, handcuffed and hand-in-hand, and he's higher than high, he's better than cocaine, but this time Sherlock falls from a rooftop and <em>John knows. </em>He doesn't make John watch. He doesn't destroy John inside and out, he doesn't give him a funeral with an empty casket, he doesn't give him a body broken on the sidewalk and it's all his fault. This time he falls and he says goodbye and he hugs John before he leaves and John hugs him back and it's all okay. It's okay. It is.</p><p>"I'm coming back," he chokes. His face crumples into John's hideous jumper and it's unforgivable. "I'm coming back, John," and John's fingers bury in his hair and his breath slides into Sherlock's chest there's nothing left of him at all, and the fraying threads of himself are stitched together solely by the warmth of John Watson.</p><p>"I'll be here."</p><p>Sherlock doesn't leave, and John doesn't need to wait.</p><p>2012-2014: Sherlock exists inside John, and John exists inside him. Sherlock nests himself in John's arms and this is okay. He'll never need to go again. For two years they exist in each other's arms and it's boring, it's tedious, it's stupid, but Sherlock doesn't <em>care. </em>John isn't left behind and Sherlock isn't gone away and what more could he ever ask for? What else could ever make this right?</p><p>What else is he supposed to do to fix this?</p><p>Sherlock ruins John's proposal with terrible French and an even worse mustache. He recognises Mary for who she is with the box of the ring still in her hand, and he tells John and swabs an eraser through Mary right then and there. He sees John is about to propose and he realises he ruined John's life and he stays away. He turns around and walks away and stays away. He never goes to the restaurant at all. He dies in Serbia and stays dead.</p><p>He kisses John in a French restaurant.</p><p>He kisses John in an empty train car.</p><p>He kisses John surrounded by serviettes and teaching him how to waltz.</p><p>He kisses John in front of red Buckingham Palace guards.</p><p>He kisses John with the both of them piss drunk and failing miserably at Rizla.</p><p>He kisses John.</p><p>He plans the perfect wedding and then kisses John in the middle of the ceremony. He plans the perfect wedding and plays the perfect waltz and gives John the perfect night, and goes home. He doesn't plan the wedding; he doesn't go to the wedding at all. John marries Not-Mary-Morstan and his best man is Gavin Lestrade because Sherlock died in Serbia, and nobody cries because Sherlock did it Wrong, and it's <em>weddings, </em>people aren't supposed to <em>cry.</em></p><p>John moves back home, and Sherlock wraps himself all around him and doesn't let him go. John moves back home, and this time he's there to stay, and it's 2010 again, but this time forever.</p><p>John moves back home, and then he realises what he's done. He realises Sherlock will never go on a traditional date, because he'll not ever want to. He realises Sherlock is a high-functioning sociopath who will disregard anniversaries and delete everything that matters, because he is cruel and and a machine and heartless, and will never be able to give John what he needs. He realises Sherlock will make inappropriate deductions at the worst of times, and he will make their friends cry, and no amount of <em>behave </em>will get him to stop it. He realises Sherlock is not a woman and remembers that he is Not Gay.</p><p>John moves back home, and then the baby is born. John's eyes dim, and they don't light back up.</p><p>
  <em>I... think I made a mistake, Sherlock. </em>
</p><p>Not-Mary-Morstan shoots Sherlock, and he dies on the floor of Magnussen's penthouse.</p><p>Sherlock shoots up in a drug den, and overdoses.</p><p>Sherlock's heart stops in his sitting room at Baker Street, and the paramedics don't restart it.</p><p>Sherlock is hit by a car crossing the street.</p><p>It hardly matters how. What matters is that he dies, he dies, he <em>dies, </em>and John Watson is better off every time.</p><p>And even when he doesn't die, John Watson leaves.</p><hr/><p>Dreams cling to the inside of his skull like cobwebs, when Sherlock surfaces into dim twilight.</p><p>It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a night terror. He wakes, and his heart isn't even elevated- he hears it in the blasted monitor, still pealing away just above his left ear.</p><p>It was just a dream.</p><p>There's some stock to be put in dreams. They are workings of the subconscious mind; nonsense and fanciful, yes, but subconscious or not, it's still his mind. It is still his unparalleled brilliance, the gears turning whether he wants them to or not. His mind always works terribly fast, and sometimes it works so fast he can't keep up. Sometimes there's something left over at the end of the day that his mind hasn't let go of, and sometimes it'll spit it at him in the middle of the night.</p><p>It was just... a dream.</p><p>John is still here, and Sherlock, quite obviously, is not dead.</p><p>Sherlock looks, and there he is. Curled up loosely in the bed adjacent, the blankets mussed and his mobile under one hand. It's hours into the night, leaving his shirt a wrinkled ruin and his hair a wreck and his face creased from being pressed into the abomination of a pillow. He looks like a doctor. He looks like a wonderful, amazing, dependable friend. He looks like bone-tired, sleeping in a button-down and his belt only half-way undone, his mouth slack and almost drooling for the almost empty coffee resting on the bedside table.</p><p>If Sherlock'd seen him with context removed, he would've deduced that John was the father of a newborn. Then he would've noticed the lack of a wedding ring on his finger, and- and he's not sure what he'd have thought after that.</p><p>He looks exhausted.</p><p>He's seen John after twelve hours at the surgery, and he's sat with John on all-night stakeouts. He's seen John after nightmares, the flu, and being kidnapped and held at gunpoint.</p><p>He has never seen John looked as exhausted as he does right now.</p><p>Sherlock swallows, and looks away.</p><p>Rolling onto his other side is beyond him. He shuts his eyes again instead, curled as much as he can manage. There's a persistent throbbing, right there, deep in the center of his chest, a throbbing and a heat, and he folds himself around it until it bleeds out everything else left in his head.</p><p>"Sherlock," John grumbles, voice catching and asleep. "Sherlock. What's wrong." He's asleep on his feet, but he's touching Sherlock already, his bare hands skimming over his chest, one already fumbling to untie the flimsy gown. "Oh. Your blood pressure's through the roof, love-"</p><p>
  <em>Love? </em>
</p><p>"'M fine."</p><p>"You're <em>not. </em>Lie flat for me."</p><p>John makes himself immediately busy, turning off the monitor alarms, maneuvering Sherlock as he sees fit, asking him calm, professional questions. It's entirely too much effort, and Sherlock leaves his eyes shut, pressing out the noise and John's hands until it's too loud to be ignored.</p><p>"Sherlock, if you don't start answering me, I'll have to-"</p><p>"John." He drags out each word, enunciated forcibly through gritted teeth. "I'm. Fine." He opens his eyes, and there he is. Lovely, dependable, calm John Watson, his face white in the glow of the monitors, still blinking the sleep out of his baggy eyes.</p><p>John stares at him in silence, waiting for his answer. Sherlock works his mouth, the words rolling over his tongue clumsy and stale, because he certainly must say <em>something </em>for why his blood pressure got so high in the middle of the night it tripped an alarm, but the truth is disgusting and not permitted under any circumstance.</p><p>"Can you lower the morphine?" His voice is rough, and he slides his gaze away, curling out of the way of John's sharp eyes. "Permanently, I mean. It's disturbing my sleep."</p><p>That's it. That's all he'll say.</p><p>But John is a very good doctor, and one of the only Sherlock Holmes Experts in the world over, and so that's all he needs to.</p><p>"...yeah. Yes. That's... yes." John nods, once. His head is heavy, his eyes still half-drooping, but a hand cups his shoulder and stays there, circles traced into his bare skin. "That's good, Sherlock, that's really good. We were going to start weaning you to oxy soon anyway- your attending will be happy. It's always a good sign when the patient requests less painkillers." He looks to Sherlock's PCA next, nudging the constant infusion rate down a notch or two. The renewed pang hits almost immediately. "All right?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>John watches him quietly, his eyes unreadable. They almost gleam in the monitor's glow, and in that eerie green backlight, he looks desperately unhealthy and sallow.</p><p>"I think I'll keep an eye on you for the next few minutes, anyway," he says quietly, a hand still on Sherlock's shoulder. "Just to be sure."</p><p>"If you insist." The struggle of rolling onto his other side for an audience actually isn't appealing in the slightest, so Sherlock settles for closing his eyes again instead, with nothing more than a dismissive flick of the wrist. "You're the doctor."</p><p>John mutters something, the words themselves unimportant under the warmth of his voice. His fingertips slide to the inside of Sherlock's wrist.</p><p>He's not smiling.</p><hr/><p>Over watery soup, linens starched within an inch of their lives, and a much reduced morphine drip, Sherlock gathers himself up enough the next morning to make the mandatory announcement.</p><p>"You'd best move back in with Mary."</p><p>The words stick to his gums, with lead in his veins. He is rotting and miserable and hates it, but if he doesn't say it now, then he knows he never will.</p><p>And he must say it.</p><p>He must do this.</p><p>John spends approximately three audible heartbeats staring at him in wrong-footed confusion.</p><p>"Um," he says. "Come again?"</p><p>"Just for now," Sherlock allays. He waves his hand airily, a second dismissive flick of the wrist; with his usual options of flouncing and pacing restrained, he's starting to get rather good at telling people off with just waver of his fingers. "Until the baby is born. It will be easiest for you, this way, John- if you are to change your mind."</p><p>John blinks. That lovely, no-nonsense military glare shutters, and his face does a strange, spasmodic thing.</p><p>For a moment, he clearly has no idea what to do.</p><p>"...Okay," he gives then, his voice gruff. "Right, then. Okay."</p><p>When Sherlock next surfaces, it is to a hospital room infested solely with flowers, get-well cards, and sentiment. His company is one of Mycroft's faceless minions, sitting stone-faced and unblinking on the edge of the opposite bed, thumbing through a conversation on his phone.</p><p>John is gone.</p><p>He molds himself around a limp pillow on his other side, and goes back to sleep.</p><hr/><p>Mycroft's minion has been replaced by Mrs. Hudson, when he opens his eyes again.</p><p>She has the look of someone who's been sent here. By John, most likely- requested to <em>keep an eye on him. </em>Mycroft would've requested it too, but Mrs. Hudson thinks Mycroft is a vulture and listens to him about as much as she listens to Sherlock's opinions on Mr. Chatterjee.</p><p>John, she listens to.</p><p>How <em>hateful.</em></p><p>Sherlock shuts his eyes again before she can realise he's awake.</p><p>She fusses over him, even feigning sleep. She tucks him in and touches his cheek, feeling for a temperature; she pats his hair. He wonders why people have such an obsession with hair. But then, he loves it when John touches his, so he's no better, is he?</p><p>"Look at this. Who sent you lilies? Who thought you liked lilies? All these flowers- and you don't want a single one of them, do you? Not a single one from your brother, I'm sure." There's bustling about; more displeased muttering about the state of his room as a florist's shop. By the sound of it, she trashes Janine's tulips. They'd been wilting. Courtesy of John pretending they did not exist.</p><p>It's no loss. Mrs. Hudson is right: he doesn't much care for flowers.</p><p>"You're going to need fattening up, dear. This time I'm not taking no for an answer. And you're so <em>pale, </em>Sherlock; it's not good for you. You have a very good doctor, you know; you should be listening to him."</p><p>Yes. John is definitely the one who's sent Mrs. Hudson here today.</p><p>He can't even begrudge him for it. Much. He wants John to be happy, and that- the person he's woken up to in this room, time and time again- he has not been happy. He is tired and grey eyed, living out of a duffel bag with tea in plastic cups and he holds his shoulder when he thinks nobody can see. He tosses and turns at night and when he looks at Sherlock it's as if the sight alone makes him want to vomit.</p><p>He can't begrudge John for leaving, when Sherlock is, after all, the one who'd sent him away.</p><p>He <em>can </em>begrudge him for siccing Mrs. Hudson at her most worried on him, though.</p><p>A box of something is set beside him. Plastic tupperware, by the sound of it. Those chocolate biscuits of hers that he loves, and she makes them for him whenever she can be sure he'll actually eat them.</p><p>He's not allowed solid food yet. Maybe he'll sway a nurse into taking them downstairs to Molly. Or looking the other way as he eats them anyway.</p><p>"But it's no worry, love, all of this. I'm sure you'll be feeling much better soon. You always heal right up so quickly... and with John <em>and </em>Mary watching you now..."</p><p>Her voice dwindles, and the fiddling with the blanket stops.</p><p>
  <em>Beep. Beep. Beep.</em>
</p><p>"I haven't seen Mary since that night, Sherlock. You were all so upset- John was shouting, he was so, so <em>angry, </em>and... and Mary wouldn't say anything. She just watched as the ambulance left."</p><p>He doesn't remember. He was a little busy at the time, having his heart restarted. He doesn't want to remember.</p><p>"What was so important that you had to do it right then? That you had to do that to John, Sherlock? I'm sure you had to do it, you always do, but... you just can't keep making him watch as you hurt yourself, Sherlock. You can't keep doing this to the people that love you."</p><p>There'd been a good reason why. But honestly, painkillers and antibiotics lying suffocatingly heavy on his skull, he doesn't even remember it.</p><hr/><p>What Sherlock doesn't understand is that everyone always tells him that he is <em>selfish. </em>He is self-centered. He is arrogant, narcissistic, and so full of himself his head ought to explode, and those around him would be ever so grateful if he would just stop and think about others for <em>once </em>in his life.</p><p>Then he actually sits down and <em>tries it, </em>and everything is made catastrophically, unequivocally worse.</p><p>Is it any bloody wonder why he tries to swear it all off, this caring lark, when it always ends this badly?</p><p>
  <em>Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>All lives end. All hearts are broken. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.</em>
</p><hr/><p>John is back that evening.</p><p>Of course he is. John is a good man and a good doctor. He won't abandon his gunshot best friend while he's still in hospital; of course not, no. That's not how this is going to go. John isn't capable of that any more than he's capable of leaving his pregnant wife.</p><p>He bustles in so loudly that it ought to be a criminal offense, a noisy cacophony of plastic and the smell of Chinese takeaway that jolts Sherlock from sleep ever bit as violently as a taser. The smile on his face is so firm it might as well be glued there. "Good morning!" he announces, and it is decidedly not morning. "Come on, none of that, Sherlock. I've got your favourite."</p><p>Sherlock slits his eyes open, watching the colorful blur settle itself back in. There's takeaway and two takeaway teas and John's making himself back at home, as if he intends to stay. Stay, John. <em>Stay.</em></p><p>Sherlock grumbles something in his throat; it doesn't even come out <em>sounding </em>like words, never mind intelligible ones. But John turns his grin on him, and he laughs, looking light as air, lighter than this morning, lighter than the bloody wedding. "Yes, mu shu pork. For me. You don't want something that heavy, right now."</p><p>John is right. It's unfair and a shade away from cruel, but he's right. Sherlock inhales deeply, working upright to gauge the containers for himself. "So you got me miso soup instead. John. This place's miso soup is two parts scrap of green onion- one singular green onion- three parts flakes of tofu, and ten parts flavoured water."</p><p>"Yes. I know. That's why I got it. Perfect for London children, born and raised and forced to a Chinese restaurant by their parents, and hospital patients three days off a feeding tube. We'll give a better order a try in a few days." John smiles again, pressing the styrofoam container into his hands, enfolding his fingers around Sherlock's. It's only to ensure he doesn't drop the damn thing, but he touches and holds his hands without even a hint of discomfort, and it's- it's perfect. It's electrifying. It's <em>what he wants.</em></p><p>It's so hatefully, disgustingly, unforgivably <em>stupid.</em></p><p>Then John lets go, and the moment is gone.</p><p>Sherlock makes a face down at the soup, just because he's meant to. Being difficult is who he is. But then he considers the warm bowl, clutched between his hands, and he considers the tea. He considers the tiny flakes of shredded pork John is nudging into said bowl as they speak.</p><p>His other options are hospital broth, hospital mush, and hospital muck-masquerading-as-tea.</p><p><em>Oh, </em>he's going to miss John when he goes.</p><p>"I suppose that this is just along the line of marginally acceptable, then. Taking, of course, your limited mental faculties into account."</p><p>"Oh, is it? I'm so happy for you, Sherlock. Anything at all for His Nibs." John flashes him another smile, settling back into what he has claimed as his chair. "I moved back into Baker Street today."</p><p>Sherlock inhales a mouthful of soup.</p><p>"Went a lot quicker than I thought, with the movers," John goes on, conversational and casual. He plucks another bite of pork swimming in grains of rice. "Though I think some of the tabloids caught a few pictures and are now running headlines that Mary kicked me out because I was sleeping with you. Sorry about that." He's smiling, still, he's smiling and digging into Chinese takeaway, and he hands over a packet of sugar for Sherlock's tea. "I'd also apologise for leaving the flat a wreck, but you'd already took care of that all by yourself, so. More sugar?"</p><p>It's a good thing that Sherlock hadn't taken more than a few droplets of soup, because it takes him this long to finally remember how to swallow.</p><p>"I... you. <em>John." </em>He stares at John, fish-mouthed and dumbstruck, and he swallows nothing air. "You... moved back in."</p><p>John nods. "And one more thing, actually-" He palms his phone and chopsticks in one, balancing his takeaway on his knees. It rings, already put on speaker, and John settles it on the bed between them. Each ring joins the peals of the heart monitor, off-key and off-center, and Sherlock doesn't know what he's supposed to do but stare.</p><p>
  <em>"What has my brother done now?"</em>
</p><p>"Mycroft," John says. "Hello. No, it's nothing like that. Sherlock's right here, and just fine."</p><p>Mycroft sighs grittily. By the sound of it, he'd exited a meeting of paramount importance, when John's number had flashed across his screen.</p><p>Well, Sherlock still doesn't know what this is about, but he'll never turn down the opportunity to interrupt Mycroft's schedule of machinating and scheming.</p><p>
  <em>"Then to what, pray tell, do I owe this pleasure?"</em>
</p><p>"I'd like a divorce."</p><p>The foundations under his feet crack.</p><p>Sherlock stares, and John, his eyes clear and bright and his face set in stone, stares right back.</p><p>"Preferably an annulment, actually. If you can manage it. Whichever one is cleanest." He pauses, leaning just a bit heavier on the bed. His elbow is close enough to nudge Sherlock's knee, and he leaves it there, nestling through the blanket. "Just get the papers to me at the soonest possible convenience and tell me where to sign."</p><p>Five of Sherlock's heartbeats count out the silence.</p><p><em>"I... see." </em>It is by a great measure of restraint that Mycroft doesn't point out he is not a divorce attorney. <em>"And the baby?"</em></p><p>John's expression flickers for the very first time. That smile, that steady, dependable smile falters, and the cloud that crosses across his face is a popped and deflated balloon.</p><p>The facade falls, and there it is.</p><p>There it is.</p><p>Because John is a good man. He can make promises to Sherlock, he can sit next to him when he has nightmares, and he can bring Chinese takeaway straight to his hospital bed, and he can't abandon his own child. There's a mess of deductions to be made there about John's own childhood, a veritable thorn bush that makes Sherlock want to hit something, but the point is that John can want this to be simple all that he likes but it's not.</p><p>There's a baby.</p><p>No precarious happiness Sherlock has to offer will ever have a measure against that.</p><p>It's all right there, in the way John's face falls, and the easiest smile he's ever seen from him flags into nothing.</p><p>John sees it now, too.</p><p>Sherlock would be smug, if the world wasn't caving in.</p><p>"...can I get back to you on that, Mycroft?"</p><p><em>"Naturally," </em>Mycroft murmurs. <em>"You'd best make up your mind quickly, though. Ms. Morstan is currently holding a very powerful bargaining chip, and I'd like to know your intentions before I come to the negotiating table."</em></p><p>Bargaining chip. A <em>bargaining chip, </em>he says<em>.</em> Sherlock sniffs a laugh and has to fight to keep it in his throat. He and Mycroft are two peas in a pod, aren't they?</p><p><em>Sentiment. </em>He hadn't understood it at all, when investigating the lady in pink and the baby she'd lost years and years before. At the look on John's face, he doesn't want to understand it now.</p><p>He doesn't want to.</p><p>God <em>damn </em>this caring <em>lark!</em></p><p>"Helpful as always, brother dear," Sherlock sneers, because John's not <em>saying anything</em>. He gulps up soup with unnecessary vehemence, just to loudly slurp over the phone. He hopes Mycroft is scandalized. "If you're done keeping my doctor awake during his dinner break, then? Go on, run along and make yourself useful, now. <em>Goodbye.</em>"</p><p>
  <em>"I'm glad to see injury has not tempered your acerbic wit, Sher-"</em>
</p><p>"Changed my mind, actually. You don't need to call me back, Mycroft. I have your answer right now: I want to be involved. It's my son or daughter, and I want to be involved however I can. But I don't want anything to do with Mary. She tried to kill Sherlock. End of story." John stares at him hard, and no matter how badly Sherlock wants to squirm away, he can't. "Is that enough for your negotiating table, then?"</p><p><em>"That is... yes. Quite. Noted, John.</em>" There's a rustling over the line, and then, "<em>I will be in touch."</em></p><p>John ends the call without another word, then sits back in his chair, and returns to his tea.</p><p>...all right, then.</p><p>The only break in the silence is the sound of chewing and chopsticks. John scrapes at the styrofoam, picking at rice with a single-minded intensity and staring at it like it's the most interesting thing in the world. He doesn't look at Sherlock, now, and Sherlock may not understand much, but after years of living with John (and living without him), he does know it's best to let him be.</p><p>The look on his face is...</p><p>He's tired. That much is obvious. He's tired, and his shoulder hurts after a day of lugging boxes, and he doesn't know what to say or how to look at Sherlock.</p><p>But for a man who just got divorced, he looks- surprisingly okay.</p><p>It reminds him of Lestrade, a little. What an increasingly irascible, anxious mess he'd been, in the last months of his marriage, but when the papers had finally been signed he'd just been relieved it was finally over.</p><p>There's a massive weight taken off John's shoulders, and he's all the happier for it.</p><p>It doesn't look like 2012 John. This John is older. This John is tired. This John is wounded and he hurts and so much of it is Sherlock's fault, and no matter how <em>badly </em>he wants to reset time, he can't. Even if he moves into Baker Street and they never see Mary again that John is not ever coming back.</p><p>But John is okay, like this.</p><p>Maybe things were better before, but John is still okay with how things are <em>now.</em></p><p>"I don't know why you want me to go back to Mary," John says finally. His voice is rough again, and he continues to stab at his food with unnecessary vehemence.. His face is very little short of anguish. "I don't know why you're trying so hard to convince me of it, why you apparently don't care enough about yourself that getting shot doesn't even matter, why you're so sure you're- <em>not enough."</em> He swallows, his throat moving visibly, and his next words come out thick. "For a genius you're quite possibly the biggest idiot I've ever met but <em>I don't want to go,</em> Sherlock. Can't you just let that be enough? She lied to me, she pointed a bloody gun at <em>me, </em>too, in case you forgot, and-"</p><p>John inhales sharply, his fist white-knuckled and his spine coiled. There's a storm on his face and in his eyes, and for a moment Sherlock is terrified he's going to cry.</p><p>"Don't ask me to leave," he says. He <em>begs it, </em>oh, <em>god</em>. "Please."</p><p>Sherlock stares.</p><p>
  <em>He kisses John. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He falls from St. Bart's and he dies.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He never gets shot and Mary stays Mary. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He never falls from St. Bart's.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He's shot on a case next week and dies.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He kisses John and John kisses back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He bleeds to death in Serbia.</em>
</p><p><em>He loves John, he loves him, he </em>loves <em>him.</em></p><p>There are a million paths, and just about every single one of them is better than this one.</p><p>Yet all of them, somehow, lead to here.</p><p>"Okay," he says. "Okay."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All feedback is welcome and appreciated!!! Thank you so much for reading, and stayl healthy! &lt;3</p><p>  <a href="https://problematic-ranowa.tumblr.com/">Come say hi on tumblr!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>